Road Trip Review

[X5_2_OBX]

Our 4.8i just made its first trip to the beach! I was fortunate enough to drive it for about 1000 of the 1500 mile trip. In one word, the car was PHENOMENAL!

I really can't say enough about this car!

The Pros:

1. The handling was simply amazing. We were in a caravan with an E46 M3 driven by my race-car driving grandfather and I had absolutely NO problems staying with him through the mountains of West Virginia up and down some steep climbs and around some tight turns. And some of this was in torrential downpours! Simply a champ! One of the main reasons why we went for a 4.8 over a 3.0 was for these trips and while I can't vouch for a 3.0 in those mountains, I can say that the 4.8 was a BEAST!

2. The ride was SO smooth and quiet! I really felt as though I was gliding on the road. I had noticed that the car was exceptionally quiet but the quietness was really magnified after I drove a van for the remaining 500 miles of the trip (big change, huh?).

3. I don't know how I survived without comfort access in the past! With all of the stops, driver changes, etc. it was SO nice to not have to deal with digging around the car or purse for a key or clicker. My mother (who is the daily driver of the X5) kept the key in her purse the whole trip and since she was always in the car, I never had to deal with a key.

4. We got 20 miles to the gallon which is a BIG improvement for us coming from a Suburban. Mind you, this calculation included some heavy stop and go traffic on several occassions, torrential downpours that sometimes left us crawling and several hours of driving through the mountains.

5. Say what you want about this navigation system but it was truly brilliant the whole way. We've made this trip many many times so we have a general route planned but there were some ins and outs that we didn't know and we were so thankful to have all of the details right in front of us... and they were incredibly accurate, too! There had been a SERIOUS car accident on one of the highways the day before we were driving on it and it closed the highway for 2 days. It noted that and re-routed us. The real-time traffic was also a godsend!

6. While i-Drive does take some getting used to, the BMW folks truly nailed it on this one. The design is completely intuitive and so easy to navigate through. It made the drive so much more pleasant to have all the controls at your fingertips and in ONE place.

7. The sport seats were actually quite comfortable and I was grateful for the way they hug you as we flew around the turns in the mountains!

The cons:

1. Something about the curvature of the floor on the driver's side made my knee turn in a strange position to press the gas pedal and after a few hours, my knee was bothered.

2. I wish there were more options to adjust the headrests with the sport seats. It wasn't a problem but it would have been nice to have that flexibility.

3. We should have gotten HUD. It would have been so convenient while using the navigation system. Granted, we don't travel much any more except a few trips a year but it still would have been nice to have!


I will say that we did not see ONE other E70 on the entire trip! It's quite possible that we missed them but I was surprised given the huge increase in popularity that I have been noticing here at home.

In all, it was truly awesome to drive and I am completely itching to take it out on a road trip again!